


The Heat of Battle

by Angela



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-16
Updated: 2015-01-16
Packaged: 2018-03-07 18:23:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,619
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3178484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Angela/pseuds/Angela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Varric knows he has to talk to Cassandra about lying to her about Hawke. But he never expected the discussion to become so ... heated.</p><p>**contains very mild spoilers for Dragon Age: Inquisition**</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Heat of Battle

**Author's Note:**

> Did anyone else think it was hot, the way Cassandra slammed Varric around after she confirmed he'd lied about Hawke?
> 
> ...
> 
> Just me, then? Hunh.

“Talk to her,” the Inquisitor had told him. “She's not unreasonable, now that she's calmed down.”

Varric was skeptical – he didn't believe for a second that Cassandra Pentaghast could be reasoned with. And for that matter, he bet he'd be hard pressed to name a moment when he'd ever seen her truly calm. But even though the Inquisitor's voice had been light – almost cajoling – Varric recognized an order when he heard one. And dragging his feet wouldn't do him a bit of good this time. He was part of the party being sent to check out the wardens with Hawke. With Cassandra. They were leaving in the morning, and the Inquisitor would be paying attention. If he didn't at least try to patch things up with the Seeker, he'd hear about it later.

She wasn't training in the yard. She wasn't in the armory or stables, either. He checked with Josephine, but she hadn't seen her. Neither had Cullen. Varric even checked the shrine to Andraste, but no luck there. 

Her room, then. 

Maker's breath, he didn't want to go up there.

He stopped at the tavern first, hoping that a few drinks with the Iron Bull might give him some backbone. Then Sera showed up, challenging them both to a drinking game that involved nonsense words and copious amounts of Antivan brandy. It was well past dark when he finally stumbled back into the courtyard, and Cassandra had almost certainly retired for the night.

Well, fuck.

He took the steps at a crawl. Not only was he really unenthusiastic about the possibility of waking the Seeker, but it seemed that the stairs kept moving. More than once he'd managed to miss the tread altogether, putting his boot into open air. Maker's balls, why didn't any of the staircases at Skyhold have risers?

When he got to Cassandra's door, the first thing he noticed was that a strip of light shone beneath it. Well, the first he noticed that the world had stopped spinning as soon as he climbed off the stairs and onto a solid stone floor, but then the light. He took a deep breath to steel his nerve. Cassandra could kill him if she wanted to, especially now with his reaction time all muddled.

But the Inquisitor was right. Obviously, he and the Seeker hadn't started off on the right foot, but things had been better since coming to Skyhold. Almost friendly. He'd known her longer than most of the Inquisitor's inner circle, after all. Even longer than the Inquisitor, and look how cozy those two had become. Varric liked to think he had some insight into her.

So when she opened the door to his knock, her legs long and bare beneath the dressing gown that she clutched closed near her throat, he knew better than to tease her. To say that Cassandra was not comfortable with vulnerability was understating it a bit.

But Varric had never been good at behaving the way he knew he should. 

“Looks like you're expecting company,” he said, smirking. “But the Inquisitor is with Dorian...” He figured she'd probably thought no one had noticed her little crush on the Inquisitor – her face flickered with pain and he was completely disgusted with himself, but he couldn't stop the words from spilling from his mouth. “Unless you were planning to entertain yourself instead?”

She blinked at him, aghast. “What did you say?” she demanded.

“Tell me, Seeker,” Varric continued, slurring his words only a bit. “Is it the left or the right hand of the Divine you prefer when you're – ” 

“You monster!” Cassandra roared, grabbing at him. Her Navarran accent was always thicker when she was furious, and this was no exception. “I will not stand here and listen to your disgusting blasphemy!”

For a moment, her hands grasped the collar of his tunic, her long fingers curling into the velvet, but Varric had always been a slippery drunk. He twisted away, darting past her into her chamber. “Easy, Cassandra,” he protested, wondering what his chances were at hand-to-hand combat. She always hit first and apologized later – it was a miserable way to live. “I was only teasing!”

The haze of alcohol lifted as she swung. To Varric's surprise, he caught her fist, then he wrapped his hand around her other wrist when she tried to wrench the first hand away. He held her still, both wrists locked together in front of her while she yanked and twisted. She might be better trained, but Varric was pretty sure he surpassed her in sheer strength.

“Let go of me!” she demanded. 

“No,” Varric said calmly. He steered her a few steps back until she dropped unceremoniously onto the bed. He stepped closer, keeping his grip on her firm and unbreakable. This was easier now that they were eye-to-eye. “Not until we talk about Hawke.”

Her face twisted into a sneer. “You have more lies to feed me, Varric?” she asked.

He wanted to punch her so badly that his fingers itched. But that wasn't why he was there. He sighed deeply, trying to remember why he had to go through this. Inquisitor. Orders. Right.

Cassandra's nose wrinkled. “You're drunk.” He heard disgust in her voice. Dismissal.

“And yet we're still going to talk,” Varric snapped. “So I lied about Hawke. You never once told me what you wanted with him. How the hell was I supposed to know you were looking for him to lead this organization?”

“How can I trust a word you say now?” she threw back at him. She yanked at her wrists fruitlessly, and the faint scent of flowers wafted through Varric's senses. Perfume? He was startled. Not at all what he expected from the Seeker. For an instant it was as though he were seeing her for the first time, but the illusion crashed around his ears as she landed a solid kick to his shin.“You're a worm and a liar! Drunk, to boot!”

“And you're crazy!” he yelled. “I thought you were going to kill me! I figured you were planning on killing him, too! Of course I protected him! I look out for my friends!”

She blinked at him, her gaze suddenly sharper. “How fortunate for them,” she said, her voice hard and bitter. She thrashed about angrily, desperate to make him let go.

“Andraste's tits, Cassandra!” Varric continued furiously. He squeezed her wrists so hard he almost feared breaking them. “I'd do as much for you, if you'd stop trying to beat me to a pulp!”

She went still. 

Her eyes widened. Sudden confusion played across her face. “For me?” she asked in a low voice.

He hadn't meant to say it. She hadn't earned his honesty, after all. But her bright eyes made him feel sheepish; the solution had been so close and he'd never seen it. He released her. “You're kind of fun to be around,” he conceded, looking away, “when you're not trying to murder me.”

“And you,” she said softly, rubbing at the red marks his fingers had left on her wrists. “I think you are not as bad as you pretend.”

It wasn't much as far as compliments went, but Varric would take it. Feeling almost shy, he glanced at his feet, but his eyes got distracted on the way down. Cassandra's bare knees were parted, her dressing gown shoved up across her thighs in the struggle. He found himself wondering what – if anything – she was wearing underneath it.

Cassandra's breath hitched, and he knew he'd been caught staring. “I should go,” he said quickly.

“Varric,” she said at the same time, a tremor in her voice. 

He looked at her face, trying to ignore the deep V of skin that stretched from her collarbones to – damn, he didn't think he should look to find out how low it went. Her lips parted. Her breath spilled across his cheeks. Later, if he ever told the story, Varric would say that Cassandra kissed him first. The truth was not so clear.

She tasted like heat and sweet, dark wine, and even though he knew this was a bad idea – the worst idea – his fingers plunged into her short, thick hair and he pulled her closer. Her hand was on his neck, one arm winding around his waist, fingers clawing at his tunic, at his leather belt. “Cass–” he tried, but she tugged him back, her mouth opening wide beneath his, her teeth nipping his bottom lip. 

Her grip tightened and she yanked him toward her, pulling him onto her as she fell back onto the soft feather bed. Her knees fell farther apart to accommodate him between them and he could feel the fabric of her dressing gown bunching between their hips. Once again he wondered what he might find beneath, and he felt his his arousal – half-formed since that first tantalizing whiff of perfume – assert itself. For an instant, the thought of Bianca intruded, but he shoved it away. It wasn't like she and what's-his-name had a celibate marriage; he had no reason to feel guilty.

And he would be lying if he said he hadn't thought of this before. He was good at lying, though, and so it came as a shock to him how strongly his body responded to her. She arched beneath him, and his hands deftly unraveled the intricate knot at her belt. The dressing gown fell open, and he pulled back enough to look at her. 

Varric sucked in a hard breath. Andraste's blood, she was beautiful. Her skin was golden, her body lean and strong. A long scar stretched along the left side of her abdomen, smooth and pale and healed long ago. 

She flushed beneath his gaze, but she did not cover herself. “Varric,” she said softly in that clipped accent. Her eyes fluttered closed, then she licked her lips. “Varric, please.” And her hands were on his hips, sliding up and forward toward the laces of his breeches.

He could not believe this was happening, that she meant to do this. With him. For a moment, confusion battled his lust, but it took only one more glance at her full breasts and their dusky, tight nipples, at the flare of her hips that suggested a sweet roundness to her bottom, for lust to win. To the fade with the consequences – he would deal with them after.

His fingers shook as he unbuttoned his tunic. She moaned softly against his neck, tugging at his laces, but he resisted. He'd done it like that before – fast and sloppy and mostly clothed – and while such a coupling had its merits, he wanted to feel her on every inch of his skin. He shed his clothes as swiftly as he could, and all the while she was clawing closer, kissing and licking each area of exposed skin. “Varric,” she urged, her voice low and throaty. “I need you.”

She was damp, ready for him, and he slid easily inside her. Cassandra gasped, her eyes widening before they fluttered closed. “Oh!” The sound was almost a question, and Varric answered it the only way he knew how. He pushed more deeply into her, gasping at her wet, tight heat. 

“Maker's balls, Cassandra!” he swore in a low voice. “What the fuck are we doing?”

She ignored his question, tilting her hips and thrusting up to meet him. She wrapped her long, long legs around his hips, locking her ankles behind him and squeezing with her thighs. He'd never been with a woman who wasn't a dwarf, and her limbs – so long and powerful – were enthralling. He groaned and thrust hard into her. She curled around him like a leaf, pulling him down and rising to meet him. They found their rhythm, fast and hard, and his world narrowed as he fucked her. There were only her wild eyes and those hips that slammed against him.

She rolled her pelvis just before she came, moving like a wave up his body even as her muscles tensed and trembled around him. She cried out, her fingernails digging into his shoulders, her hand in his hair fisting and pulling. Her voice, her hands, her sweet, tight wetness – it was better than anything he could have ever conjured with his imagination. He leaned down to kiss her and was shocked by the sweetness there. Now that her heat was sated, her lips were clinging. Honeyed. “Thank you.” Her whisper was barely a breath against his ear. All it took for him to reach his limit.

Varric felt the tremors first, that tightening of the nerves that connected his sex to his whole body. She arched into him in that last moment, as eager for his climax as she had been for her own. “Yes,” she purred against his chest. A throaty, sexy laugh. “Come inside me, Varric.” 

He came hard, the shudders of his orgasm shaking his whole body. She moved beneath him, somehow prolonging the experience. Or adding to its intensity. He was disoriented and spent, lying breathless on her bed and feeling intoxicated by more than just alcohol.

She rolled away from him, her chest heaving as she stared up at the ceiling. “This can't happen,” she said at last, the old firmness back in her voice, this time touched by panic.

A bark of a laugh burst out of him. She looked at him, stricken, but he couldn't help it. “Sorry, Seeker,” he said, shaking his head. “I think it already has.”

“Maker's breath!” She reached for her dressing gown, trying to cover all that beautiful skin. 

Varric rolled over to face her and put one hand on her cheek. She tensed, clutching the smooth fabric over her breasts. He was charmed by her delayed modesty, by the flush that colored her chest and face. “Relax, Cassandra,” he told her softly. “It's just me.”

To his complete surprise, she did. He felt her muscles loosen and he gathered her close against him. Skyhold was too cold for lying about without clothes on, after all. After a moment she sighed and nuzzled closer, her hand gently stroking the hair on his chest. 

“This cannot happen again,” she said at last.

Varric wasn't about to disagree. “Never again,” he promised.

She wasn't satisfied. “And we never speak of it,” she added.

“Never,” he agreed.

“To anyone.”

“Turns out I'm pretty good at keeping secrets,” Varric said, hoping his mouth wouldn't get him into trouble again. “Even under interrogation.”

She laughed. It was chagrined and sexy and possibly the best sound he'd heard in a long time. “So I've heard.”

And what would he say, really? That the only way he and Cassandra could manage to stop fighting was to fuck it out first? It was too absurd for fiction, even. It had been a long, long time, he reasoned to himself. He hadn't been with anyone but Bianca since – before Anders blew up that Chantry? Varric shook his head. No wonder he hadn't been able to resist. 

“So why the outfit?” He couldn't resist asking. The explanations in his head were just too tantalizing.

“I was going to take a bath,” she told him like it was the most obvious thing.

Hunh.

He wiped away a bead of sweat from her forehead, tried to smooth her tousled hair. It would be complicated, but he thought that maybe they could be friends now. At the very least, the next morning when the Inquisitor gathered them for whatever near-death experience he had planned this time, he and Cassandra would have history. They might never speak of it, but he would know when their eyes met. She would know.

Varric smiled.


End file.
